Jean 11:47-53

Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council

The Sanhedrim

I. The NAME συνέδριον. Sanhedrin is more accurate than Sanhedrim, though this is more frequently used, and means a sitting together, an assembly.

II. SIGNIFICATION: the supreme, theocratico-hierarchical court of the Jews, resident at Jerusalem.

III. COMPOSITION AND ORGANIZATION. It consisted of seventy-one members forming three classes--chief priests, elders, scribes. At that time it was composed of Pharisaic and Sadducean elements. Its president was ordinarily the High Priest who was assisted by a vice-president.

IV. SESSIONS.

1. Extraordinary: in urgent cases at the house of the High Priest.

2. Ordinary: held daily, with the exception of the Sabbath and feast days, of old in a session room adjoining the Temple, called Gazith, but from a period of forty years before the destruction of the Temple in places near the Temple mount.

V. MATTERS COMING UNDER THE COGNIZANCE OF THE COURT AS A FORUM. Matters concerning a whole tribe, a false prophet, the high priest, an arbitrary war, or blasphemy.

VI. PUNITARY POWER. Formerly infliction of capital punishment; stoning, burning, beheading, hanging, later, excommunication and recommendation for capital punishment.

VII. ADMINISTRATION. Connection with the minor courts; highest court of appeal from these; intercourse with them through surrogates and apparitors.

VIII. EXTENT OF AUTHORITY: legislation, administration, justice.

IX. HISTORY. According to the Talmudists, this court originated in the institution of Moses (Nombres 11:24). That probably was preclusive. So, too, the supreme court of Jehoshaphat (2 Chroniques 19:8). Increased importance of this institution after the Exile. The γευουσία in the time of the Selucidae (2MMalachie 1:10); the first decided mention at the time of Antipater and Herod (“Jos. Antiq.” 14:9, 4). (J. P. Lanye, D. D.)

What do we

Men active for destruction

Alas! if only this question had been: “What must we do to be saved?” But, like all ungodly men, they are, as Augustine says, more active in devising ways to cause destruction than to escape destruction. “What do we?--this man doeth many miracles!” What a fearful antithesis is here! (R. Besser, D. D.)

It is ever in the way of those who rule the earth to leave out of their reckoning Him who rules the universe. (Cowper.)

The perplexity Jesus occasions His enemies

Man cannot come into the presence of truth and purity without shame and confusion. The Chief Priests and Pharisees felt this in the presence of Jesus. The subject suggested is--The perplexity Jesus occasions His enemies.

I. ONE SOURCE OF THEIR PERPLEXITY WAS FOUND IN HIS POSSESSION AND EXERCISE OF MIRACULOUS POWER. “This man doeth many miracles.” What should have been to them the strongest proof of the dignity of His character, and validity of His mission, only excited their jealousy and increased their fears. Unbelievers fear the power of Christianity, while they despise its teaching, and reject its author.

II. THEIR PERPLEXITY WAS INCREASED BY THE FAME AND SUCCESS OF HIS MISSION. “If we let Him thus alone all men will believe on Him.” The resurrection of Lazarus, added to the fame of Jesus, which had been increasing as He swept along in His career. His success recorded in verse

45. Nothing troubles infidels more than the tenacious life of Christianity,and its irrepressible extension.

III. THEIR PERPLEXITY REACHED ITS CLIMAX WHEN THEY DECIDED TO PUT HIM TO DEATH (Jean 11:53). Murder has ever been the miserable subterfuge of the tyrant--the ghastly policy of the weak and despotic. But what a condition of heart does this reveal--bewilderment, cowardice, cruelty. The man least disturbed was their victim. Calm and unmoved, Jesus pressed forward to finish His work.

IV. THE DEED BY WHICH THEY SOUGHT TO END THEIR PERPLEXITY ONLY INCREASED IT. To die was the object of Christ’s coming into the world. By

His death atonement was made for sin. The cruelty of the wicked defeats its purpose.

V. HOW VASTLY WAS THEIR PERPLEXITY INCREASED WHEN JESUS ROSE FROM THE DEAD! Learn

1. How vain and fatal a thing it is to fight against God.

2. That believing in Jesus is the readiest and only way of ending all perplexity concerning Him. (G. Barlow.)

The prime agents in the Crucifixion

In the events of the Passion three chief actors offer in individual types the springs of hostility to Christ. Blindness--the blindness that will not see--is consummated in the High Priest: weakness in the irresolute governor: selfishness in the traitor apostle. The Jew, the heathen, the apostate disciple form a representative group of enemies of the Lord. These men form a fertile study.

I. All that St. John records of CAIAPHAS is contained in a single sentence; and yet in that one short speech the whole soul of the man is laid open. The Council in timid irresolution expressed their fear lest “the Romans might come,” etc. (verse 48). They both petrified their dispensation into a place and a nation, and they were alarmed when they saw their idol endangered. But Caiaphas saw his occasion in their terror. For him Jesus was a victim by whom they could appease the suspicion of their conquerors (verse 49, etc.). The victim was innocent, but the life of one could not be weighed against the safety of a society. Nay, rather, it was as His words imply, a happy chance that they could seem to vindicate their loyalty while they gratified their hatred. To this the Divine hierarchy had come at last. Abraham offered his son to God in obedience to the Father in whom he trusted: Caiaphas gave the Christ to Caesar in obedience to the policy which had substituted the seen for the unseen.

II. Caiaphas had lost the power of seeing the truth: PILATE had lost the power of holding it. There is a sharp contrast between the clear resolute purpose of the priest, and the doubtful wavering answers of the governor. The judge shows his contempt for the accusers, but the accusers are stronger than he. It is in vain that he tries one expedient after another to satisfy the unjust passion of his suitors. He examines the charge of evil doing and pronounces it groundless; but he lacks courage to pronounce an unpopular acquittal. He seeks to move compassion by exhibiting Jesus scourged and mocked, and yet guiltless; and the chief priests defeat Him by the cry “Crucify” (Jean 19:6). He hears His claim to be a “King not ofthis world” and “the Son of God,” and is “the more afraid”; but his hesitation is removed by an argument of which he feels the present power Jean 19:12). The fear of disgrace prevailed over the conviction of justice, over the impression of awe, over the pride of the Roman. The Jews completed their apostasy when they cried, “We have no king but Caesar”; and Pilate unconvinced, baffled, overborne, delivered to them their true King to be crucified, firm only in this, that he would not change the title which he had written in scorn, and yet as an unconscious prophet.

III. Caiaphas misinterpreted the Divine covenant which he represented: Pilate was faithless to the spirit of the authority with which he was lawfully invested; JUDAS perverted the very teaching of Christ Himself. If once we regard Judas as one who looked to Christ for selfish ends, even his thoughts become intelligible. He was bound to his Master, not for what He was, but for what He thought that he would obtain through Him. Others, like the sons of Zebedee, spoke out of the fulness of their hearts, and their mistaken ambition was purified: Judas would not expose his fancies to reproof. St. Peter was called Satan, an adversary; but Judas was a devil, a perverter of that which is holy and true. He set up self as His standard, and by an easy delusion he came to forget that there could be any other. Even at the last he seems to have fancied that he could force the manifestation of Christ’s power by placing Him in the hands of His enemies (Jean 6:70; Jean 18:6). He obeys the command to “do quickly what he did,” as if he were ministering to his Master’s service. He stands by in the garden when the soldiers went back, and fell to the ground, waiting, as it were, for the revelation of the Messiah in His Majesty. Then came the end. He knew the sovereignty of Christ, and he saw Him go to death. St. John says nothing of what followed; but there can be no situation more overwhelmingly tragic than that in which he shows the traitor for the last time, “standing” with those who came to take Jesus. (Bp. Westcott.)

One of them named Caiaphas being the high priest that same year … prophesied

A memorable year

If this circumstance had taken place in the palmy days of the theocracy, the expression would be incomprehensible; for, according to the Mosaic law, the high priesthood was held for life. But since the Roman supremacy, the rulers of the land, dreading the power derived from a permanent office, had adopted the custom of frequently changing one high priest for another. According to Josephus the Roman governor, Valerius Gratus, “deprived Ananus of the high priesthood and conferred it on Ishmael, and afterwards deposing him made Eleazar, son of Ishmael, high priest. A year after he also was deposed, and Simon nominated in his stead, who, retaining the dignity for a year only, was succeeded by Joseph, surnamed Caiaphas.” The latter continued in office from A.D. 24 to 36, and consequently throughout the ministry of Jesus. These frequent changes justify the expression of the Evangelist, and deprive criticism of any excuse for saying that the author of this Gospel did not know that the pontificate lasted for life. But since Caiaphas was high priest for eleven consecutive years, why did St. John three times over (verses 49, 51; 18:18) use the expression, “that year”? Because he desired to recall the importance of that unique and decisive year in which the perfect sacrifice terminated the typical sacrifices and the Levitical priesthood as exercised by Caiaphas. It devolved upon the high priest to offer every year the great atoning sacrifice for the sins of the people, and this was the office now performed by Caiaphas, as the last representative of the ancient priesthood. By his vote he, in some degree, appointed and sacrificed the victim who in that ever memorable year was “to bring in an everlasting righteousness,” etc. (Daniel 9:24). (F. Godet, D. D.)

Unconscious prophecies

If some historian were to write that Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States that same year in which the great civil war broke out, would any be justified in imputing to him the mistake that the presidency was an annual office, or in concluding that the writer could not have been an American living at the time, and to whom the ordinary sources of information were open? And who has a right to ascribe to the words of St. John any further meaning than that Caiaphas was high priest then? Whether he had been so before, or should be after, was nothing to his present purpose. The oracular, even prophetic, character which his utterance obtained requires some explanation. That a bad man should utter words which were so overruled by God as to become prophetic, would of itself be no difficulty. He who used Balaam could use Caiaphas. Nor is there any difficulty in such unconscious prophecies as this evidently is. It exactly answers as such to the omina of Roman superstition, in which words spoken by one in a lesser meaning are taken up by another in a higher, and by him claimed to be prophetic of that. Cicero (“De Divin.” 1:46) gives examples: these, too, resting on the faith that men’s words are ruled by a higher power than their own. How many prophecies of a like kind meet us in the history of the Crucifixion! What was the title over our Lord but another such scornful, yet most veritable prophecy? Or what, again, the purple robe and the homage; the sceptre and the crown?

The Roman soldiers did not mean to fulfil Psalm xxii when they parted Christ’s garments, etc., nor the Jewish mockers when they spoke those taunting words; but they did so none the less. And in the typical rehearsals of the crowning catastrophe in the drama of God’s providence, how many a Nimrod, Pharaoh, Antiochus and Nero--Antichrists that do not quite come to the birth--have prophetic parts allotted to them which they play out, unknowing what they do. We have an example of this in the very name Caiaphas, which is only another form of Cephas. But the perplexing circumstance is the attribution to him because He was the high priest of these prophetic words. But there is no need to suppose that St. John meant to affirm this to have been a power inherent in the high priesthood; but only that God, the extorter of the unwilling, or even unconscious, prophecies of wicked men, ordained this further: that he in whom the whole theocracy culminated, who was “the Prince of the People” (Actes 23:5), for such, till another high priest had sanctified Himself--and his moral character was nothing to the point--Caiaphas truly was, should, because he bore this office, be the organ of this memorable prophecy concerning Christ, and the meaning and end of His death. (Archbishop Trench.)

Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people.

What is morally wrong can never be politically right. (C. J. Fox.)

Caiaphas

1. The resurrection of Lazarus had raised a wave of popular excitement. Any stir was dangerous, especially at Passover time, when Jerusalem would be filled with men ready to take fire from any spark. So a hasty meeting of the council was summoned to discuss the situation and to concert measures for repressing the nascent enthusiasm. Like all weak men, they feel that “something must be done.” Their fear is not patriotism or religion, but self-interest. They are at a loss what to do.

2. But there is one man who knows his own mind, and no restraint of conscience or delicacy keeps him from speaking it out. Impatient at their vacillation, he brushes it all aside with, “Ye know nothing at all.” The one point for us is our own interests. This Man must die. Never mind His miracles, teaching, character. He is a perpetual danger to our prerogatives. And so he clashes his advice down into the middle of their waverings, like a piece of iron into yielding water, and the strong man is master of the situation, and the resolve is taken (Jean 11:53).

3. But John regards this advice as prophecy. Caiaphas spoke wiser things than he knew. The Divine Spirit breathed in strange fashion and moulded his savage utterance into an expression of the deepest thought about Christ’s death. Consider

I. THE UNSCRUPULOUS PRIEST AND HIS SAVAGE ADVICE.

1. He was set by his office to tend the sacred flame of Messianic hope, with pure hands and heart to offer sacrifice for sin, and to witness for the truth. And see what he is! A crafty schemer, blind to Christ’s character and teaching, unspiritual, rude, cruel. What a lesson this speech and the character disclosed by it read to all who have a professional connection with religion. Priests of all churches have always been tempted to look upon religion as existing somehow for their personal advantage. And so “the Church is in danger” means “my position is threatened;” and heretics must be got rid of because their teaching is inconvenient, and new truth is fought against because officials do not see how it harmonizes with their preeminence.

2. All who professionally handle sacred things are tempted to look upon truth as their stock-in-trade, and to fight against innovations that appear to threaten the teacher’s position.

3. But the lessons are for all. This selfish consideration of our own interests

(1) Will blind us to the most radiant beauty of truth; aye, to Christ Himself. Fishes which live in the water of caverns lose their eight, and men who live in the dark holes of their own selfish natures lose their spiritual sight. When you put on regard for yourselves as they do blinkers on horses you lose the power of comprehensive vision, and only see straight forward upon the line marked out by self interests. Lord Nelson at Copenhagen put his telescope up to his blind eye at the signal of recall, and this is what selfishness does with hundreds who do not know it. There are none so blind as those who won’t see; and there are none who won’t see so certainly as those who have a suspicion that if they do they will have to change their tack.

(2) May bring a man down to any kind and degree of wrong-doing. Caiaphas was brought down by it from supreme judge to assassin. If you begin with “it is expedient” as the canon of your conduct you get on an inclined plane that tilts at a very sharp angle, and is sufficiently greased, and ends away in darkness and death, and it is only a question of time how far, fast, deep and irrevocable will be your descent.

(3) Has in it an awful power of so twisting and searing a man’s conscience as that he comes to view the evil and never knows there is any wrong in it. Caiaphas had no conception that he was doing anything but obeying the dictate of self-preservation. The crime of the actual crucifixion was diminished because done unconsciously; but the crime of the process by which they came to be unconscious--how that was increased and deepened!

4. The only antagonist to this selfishness is to yield ourselves to the love of God in Christ, and to say, “I live, yet not I,” etc.

II. THE UNCONSCIOUS PROPHET AND HIS GREAT PREDICTION.

1. The Evangelist conceives that the high priest, being the head of the theocratic community, was naturally the medium of a Divine oracle. In that fateful year the great “High Priest forever” stood for a moment by the side of the earthly high priest--the Substance by the shadow--and by this offering of Himself deprived priesthood and sacrifice of all their validity. Caiaphas was in reality the last of the high priests, and those that succeeded him for less than half a century were but like ghosts. Solemn and strange that Aaron’s long line ended in such a man!

2. Being high priest he prophesied. And there was nothing strange in a bad man’s prophesying. Balaam did; so did Pilate when he wrote the inscription, and the Pharisees when they said, “He saved others.”

3. The prophecy suggests

(1) The two-fold aspect of Christ’s death. From the human standpoint it was murder by forms of law for political ends. From the Divine point of view it is God’s great sacrifice for the sin of the world. The greatest crime is the greatest blessing. Man’s sin works out the Divine purpose, even as the coral insects blindly building up the reef that keeps back the waters, or, as the sea in its wild impotent rage, seeking to overwhelm the land, only throws upon the beach a barrier that confines its waves and curbs their fury.

(2) The two-fold consequences of that death upon the nation itself.

(a) The thing which Caiaphas had tried to prevent was brought about by the deed itself. Christ’s death was the destruction, and not the salvation, of the nation.

(b) And yet it was true that He died for that people, for Caiaphas as truly as for John. You must either build upon Christ, the Foundation Stone, or be crushed into powder under Him.

4. The two-fold sphere in which that death works its effect. When John wrote the narrower national system had been shivered, and from out of the dust and ruin had emerged the firmer reality of a Church as wide as the world.

(1) The scattered children of God were to be united round the Cross. The only bond that unites men is their common relation to Christ. That is deeper than all the bonds of nation, blood, race, society, etc.

(2) Christ’s death brings men into the family of God. “To as many as received Him,” etc. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Truth borne by strange witnesses

A flaming torch may be found in a blind man’s hand. (J. Trapp.)

Caiaphas; or, a glance as government, human and Divine

I. AN INIQUITOUS POLICY IN THE GOVERNMENT OF MAN. At the meeting of the Sanhedrim two things were admitted--Christ’s mighty deeds; His power over the people, These admissions by enemies are important as evidence and significant as lessons. In relation to Caiaphas’s policy, note

1. That it was apparently adapted to the end. Christ was alienating the people from the institutions of the country, and shaking their faith in its authorities; and the most effective plan for terminating the mischief seemed to be to put Him to death.

2. Though seemingly adapted to the end it was radically wrong in principle. The Victim was innocent. The apparent fitness of a measure to an end does not make it right.

3. Being radically wrong it was ultimately ruinous. It brought upon them the judgments which broke up the Commonwealth. Let Governments study the policy of Caiaphas.

II. A STUPENDOUS FACT IN THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD. Caiaphas unconsciously predicts a feature of the Divine administration--that the death of Christ was necessary to the salvation of others.

1. Negatively. The death of Christ

(1) Does not change the mind of God in relation to man. It is the expression, proof, and medium of God’s love.

(2) Does not relax the claims of laws. Nothing can do this but annihilation.

(3) Does not mitigate the enormity of sin, but rather increases it.

(4) Does not change the necessary conditions of spiritual improvement--the intellectual study, heart application, and devotional practice of Divine truth.

2. Positively.

(1) It gives a new revelation of God.

(2) It gives new motives to obedience. “Ye are not your own,” etc.

(3) It supplies new helps to spiritual culture.

(a) The highest ideal--the character of Christ.

(b) The highest incentives--gratitude, esteem, benevolence.

(c) The highest Minister--God’s Spirit. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

The modern Caiaphas

Caiaphas appears in three characters.

I. As a WITNESS

1. To the truth of Christ’s miracles. He had every reason to deny it, and that he did not is certain evidence that he could not. In this he was wiser than his modern disciples, who admire Christ’s doctrines but deny His works. Eliminate the latter and you throw discredit on the authenticity of the former. If Christ be not risen (the greatest miracle), says Paul, preaching is false and faith vain. And if you get rid of Christ’s miracles, what about those of nature and man?

2. To the power of formality--the deep seated hatred of innovation which is in man. Christ was a mighty Phenomenon. He struck out a new line of thought and life, and those who do that must expect opposition. When Wilberforce began his career a nobleman pointed to a picture of the Crucifixion and said, “That is the end of reformers.” If you have not found it true it is because you have not tried to reform anything. Men hate to be disturbed in their sins.

3. To Christ as a disturbing force in history. He may be hated and crucified, but He cannot be ignored. He brings Divine tumult with Him, and divides the world into hostile camps. All kingdoms are shaken that His kingdom may be set up. From the days of Caiaphas to now the supreme question is,

“What think ye of Christ?” “What are we to do?” said the priest. “How long halt ye?” etc. If Christ be false then “away with Him.” But if He be true be honest enough to act on your conviction.

II. As a PROPHET. The gift of prophecy was supposed never to have died out of the Jewish priesthood. So when Caiaphas arose all voices were hushed as he said, “It is expedient,” etc. Mark how God raises the speech of a frantic bigot so that it becomes a prophecy of the atonement. Even as storm, wind, hail, etc., do God’s bidding no less than the sunshine, so God uses even evil men to do the very thing they oppose. What does sceptical criticism do for Christ but reveal that there is that which is above all criticism. The mountain is never so grand as when the storm gathers round it. And so Christ stands unshaken, triumphant amid the loud tempest and tumult of history. The wrath of men praises Him, etc.

III. As a PHILOSOPHER. He recognizes the sacrificial element which has always been at work in society. Do you turn to Leviticus and regard it as an obsolete record of curious ancient custom? If so you will never grasp its significance, which goes down to the root of human life. The word written across the Book is “sacrifice.” Life is built up of sacrifice. It is the law of motherhood and of love, the soul of heroism, the essence of nobleness. Ages sacrifice themselves for the race that follows. There is nothing Diviner than for a man to die for sins not his own. The world will never be redeemed until men are ready to die for it. Caiaphas defines the meaning of Christ in history. He is “the Lamb of God.” (W. J. Dawson.)

The counsel of Caiaphas

I. THE DEATH OF CHRIST AS A POLITICAL CRIME.

1. The real reason: because Christ would not be another Maccabaeus to achieve political emancipation.

2. The ostensible pretext: that He threatened to bring them into conflict with the Roman power, and thus imperilled their interests

3. The fatal blunder. All political crimes are blunders. The murder of Jesus brought about the destruction of the Jewish State.

II. THE DEATH OF CHRIST AS A DIVINE SACRIFICE.

1. Its substitutionary character. It was, and that according to the Divine intention, the death of one Man for the people. The Son of Man gave His life a ransom for many, and died the just for the unjust.

2. Its worldwide significance. Christ died not for Jews only but for Gentiles 1 Jean 2:2).

3. Its ultimate design: “that He shall gather,” etc. (Jean 10:16).

The enlargement of the Spirit on Caiaphas’s prophecy

I. FOR WHOM CHRIST DIED.

1. The Jews.

2. The children of God scattered abroad.

(1) Then living.

(2) Throughout all time.

II. THE PURPOSE OF HIS DEATH CONCERNING THESE: to gather them into one. Christ’s dying is

1. The great attraction to our hearts.

2. The great centre of our unity.

(1) By the merit of His death recommending all in one to the favour of God.

(2) By the motive of His death drawing each to the love of every other. (M. Henry.)

Substitution

A certain town called Ekrikok was devoted to destruction for high treason. But it was allowed to redeem itself, partly by a fine and partly by one life being offered in expiatory sacrifice for the whole, which was accomplished in the person of a new slave, bought for the purpose. Mr. Waddell, the missionary, remonstrating on the subject with “Old Egho Jack, the head of a great family,” that personage asserted that “it was impossible the affair could be settled without a death, for Egho law was the same as God’s law to Calabar,” and he pointedly asked me if it were better for all Ekrikok to die, or for one slave to die for all the town? I thought of the words of Caiaphas, and of the value of life as a substitution and atonement for sin. A poor slave, bought in the market for a few hundred coppers, by his death redeemed a town, for which many thousands of money would have availed nothing. (Missionary Record of the U. P. Church.)

Substitution

In the time of Napoleon I a certain man agreed to join the ranks in the place of a comrade who had been drafted. The offer was accepted, the battle was fought, and the man was killed. Some time after another draft was made, and they wanted a second time to take the man whose substitute had been shot. “No,” said he, “you can’t take me; I’m dead. I was shot at such a battle.” “Why, man, you are crazy. Look here, you got a substitute; another man went in your place, but you have not been shot.” “No, but he died in my place; he went as my substitute.” They would not recognize it, and it was carried up to the Emperor; but the Emperor said the man was right. Napoleon I recognized the doctrine of substitution. (D. L. Moody.)

Vicarious atonement

Some 350 years B.C. a great chasm opened in the Forum of Rome, which the soothsayers declared could only be filled up by throwing into it Rome’s greatest treasure. Thereupon Mettus Curtius, a young and noble Roman knight, arrayed himself in full armour, and mounted his charger, and, declaring that Rome possessed no greater treasure than a brave citizen, leaped into the chasm, upon which the earth closed over him. (W. Baxendale.)

The sacrifice of one the salvation of many

At Ragenbach in Germany one afternoon a great number of people were assembled in the large room of the inn. The room door stood open and the village blacksmith, a pious, brave-hearted man, sat near the door. All at once a mad dog rushed in, but was seized by the smith with an iron grasp and dashed on the floor. “Stand back, my friends,” cried he. “Now hurry out while I hold him. Better for one to perish than for all.” The dog bit furiously on every side. His teeth tore the arms and thighs of the heroic smith, but he would not let go his hold. When all the people had escaped he flung the half-strangled beast from him against the wall, left the room and locked the door. The dog was shot; but what was to become of the man? The friends whose lives he had saved stood round him weeping. “Be quiet, my friends,” he said, “don’t weep for me: I’ve only done my duty. When I am dead think of me with love; and now pray for me that God will not let me suffer long or too much. I know I shall become mad, but I will take care that no harm comes to you through me.” Then he went to his shop. He took a strong chain. One end of it he rivetted with his own hands round his body, the other end he fastened round the anvil so strongly that no earthly power could loose it. Then he turned to his friends and said, “Now it’s done! You are all safe. I can’t hurt you. Bring me food while I am well and keep out of my reach when I am mad. The rest I leave with God.” Soon madness seized him, and in nine days he died--died gloriously for his friends; but Christ died for His enemies. (R. Newton, D. D.)

Self-sacrifice

The plague was making a desert of the city of Marseilles; death was everywhere. The physicians could do nothing. In one of their councils it was decided that a corpse must be dissected; but it would be death to the operator. A celebrated physician of the number arose, and said, “I devote myself for the safety of my country. Before this numerous assembly, I swear in the name of humanity and religion, that tomorrow at the break of day I will dissect a corpse and write down as I proceed what I observe.” He immediately left the room, made his will, and spent the night in religious exercises. During the day a man had died in the house of the plague and at daybreak on the following morning the physician, whose name was Guyon, entered the room and critically made the necessary examinations, writing down all his surgical observations. He then left the room, threw the papers into a vase of vinegar that they might not convey the disease to another, and retired to a convenient place where he died in twelve hours. (Homiletic Monthly.)